[beep] [voicemail] Tuesday, 9:47 am
[female] Hi, honey. I-- baby, you have to listen
to me carefully.
I am on a plane that has been hijacked.
I am on a plane.
I call from the plane. I want to tell you I love you.
Please tell my children that I really love them.
And I'm very sorry, honey.
I don't know what to say. There are three people.
They have hijacked the plane. I try to calm down.
We turn around, and I've heard it
there are planes
which has been flown to the world trade center.
I hope to see your face again, honey.
I love you. Goodbye.
Voicemail: End of message.
Well, the picture I saw, which, of course, uh,
The most influencing me is the people who dive from the building
when burning.
You know, to be put in such a desperate state, you know,
which shows you are human--
human reaction to such conditions.
That's just, uh, it's just rebelling.
And disgusting that we let it, basically, happen.
ThinThread is a program
which will definitely prevent 9/11.
So everything goes back to the program.
[Radack] First time
I met Bill Binney,
the first thing he said to me was,
"I want you to know that I will never intentionally
kill myself."
I think he's a little overdramatic,
but then when I start hearing what he says
about what our country does,
I am worried about his safety too.
[Binney] I want to make one thing
very sure ahead,
that he can be convinced that I will not commit suicide.
And I say that because I know that some people are involved
in this activity,
and that is a very serious thing
because people at the highest level
from the US government involved
in all departments.
So I want to make sure that he understands
that if something happens to me, it's not suicide
because I will be here with him
and others to the end.
I grew up in midwestern Pennsylvania.
That is basically the Pennsylvania wilderness.
It's in the hills, in the hills of Appalachia
right before the mountains.
This is my father's grave.
At one time, I asked him, I said, uh,
"In your service during the war, how many men did you kill?"
And she said, "maybe one."
So that's all he said.
He doesn't really talk about it.
I think it's very typical of World War II veterans.
They do what they have to do and they don't really do it
think that it's different from the others
in World War II.
Nobody thought they were heroes. They just think so
their task.
One of the worst things about war is that they start it
Forcing others to be as cruel as them to stop it.
That's what I'm sure he feels.
He just doesn't want to talk about having to do
what should he do when in war.
One of the main reasons we fight is due to mistakes
by leadership
because they are given incorrect information
or they are uniformed about the event, you know, fully.
So my principle is that I work under
is ensuring that information
that I can arrive through the work I do
informative for leadership so they don't make mistakes.
[woman] Watch out, be careful.
Back now for you once again if you just joined us,
an underground explosion in the garage section
from the World Trade Center in New York City
now has killed three people according to New York
Port Authority
and has injured at least 150 people.
Hundreds of people when we talk are still being evacuated
from the twin story structure structure
at the southern end of Manhattan Island.
There is no hope at all.
Stuck on the 94th floor along the way.
The walls explode and everything goes blank
after that.
The wall collapses, the furniture goes down.
It's a mess downstairs.
[Binney] The first attack
at the Trade Center on & 93;
that is the first thing that wakes everyone
in the case of terrorism threats.
They carry truck bombs to the basement
and try to place a bomb next to supporters
for the building
and set it to try to shake the building
or destroy support so the building will fall.
Technically, it doesn't work like that,
but it kills a lot of people,
and the CIA really starts hitting drums
in the entire intelligence community
to pursue terrorism,
and that's what we did at the NSA.
We also search at the same time
with an explosion in the digital era,
bend communication on the internet and telephone,
and the terrorists bury themselves inside
communication networks that swell around the world.
So we have to face that as a new technical problem
that we have to solve to find out
who communicates with who and who is the terrorist
and try extracting that information from that stream
information.
When I first took on the duties of technical director
world geopolitical and military analysis
and report the store,
I gather analysts from all agencies
around the world...
And I said, "okay, we will start
this small project here,
and this is what we will do.
We will graph relationships
everyone on the telephone network in the world.
All we have to do is map all the relations
between two and a half billion cellphones. "
And someone behind said, "You can't do that."
And I say, "why not?"
And they say, "because all combinations are unlimited."
So I said, "okay, think about this method.
At each instant point of time
the number of atoms in the universe is limited.
Relation to 2.5 billion phones
is only a subset smaller than that.
Nothing.
Now you can get your mind around it.
That is the overall idea of the ThinThread program.
[Wiebe] Of all the analysts I have ever known
throughout my career, starting from the US air force
through my career at NSA,
Bill is by far the smartest,
the most capable,
right.
He uses all the necessary tools,
not only to find the story,
but to solve it.
Where we can't really read the message,
they are encrypted,
Bill finds a way to utilize the
indicator that I never saw someone else do it.
Bill is Mr. Externals at NSA.
He is a person at his agency
who knows best about what we now call
in the digital era, metadata.
If something is encrypted and you can't decrypt it,
You can still get information from an external signal,
and that is Bill's expertise.
Bill will find a way to encrypt
to see things that people don't even look for...
Able to work almost all problems,
almost all challenges,
and use mathematics
and other inherent analytical skills
and desire to be open-minded,
not closed minded.
He has a B.S. detector
and he can know when someone blows smoke.
And he is the agency
best traffic analyst, no bar.
[Binney] At 65 65, I came out
school
and the Vietnam war began to rampage.
That's when we still have a draft,
so people start to be spread from my community.
And because in the country,
You are usually pretty good with a shotgun,
and if you go to the army, you end up at the front line
do sweep through forests in Vietnam
and shoot people...
I really don't want to participate in all of that
at all.
I even stopped hunting because I didn't like killing animals.
So why do I want to be involved with Vietnam?
I have the option to volunteer for the army to go to Europe.
They gave me the entire battery test,
and they say, "Wow, you have a high enough talent
for analysis."
So they say, "Hey, you are the prime candidate
for military security agencies,"
and they sent me to Turkey.
We just passed the Cuban Missile Crisis
in 1962,
which is probably the closest time
we have ever come to nuclear war,
and the type of sensitivity of each person to real threats.
Turkey is looking at the south
from the Soviet Union.
They have many areas where they are developing
military technology.
I work a rather large military data system,
Soviet data system, unresolved
at that time.
So they will see things like Morse manual
or broadcast speech or satellite communication.
Such things produce information
they call traffic.
Some of you will record, some of which you will also record
directly translated
or converted to character flow.
Some will continue to be encrypted data,
that you won't be able to read,
but you can see the duration and things like that.
That's probably 20 Russian military,
so I see the small segment
trying to develop the techniques needed
to see what they do.
That I sat at the table, looking at this abstract data,
struggling to understand what that means.
When I go there, it becomes clear to me
that there are mathematical patterns involved.
I started seeing systems and relationships,
so I started building something.
That allows me to then begin to understand and interpret
the things we get in terms of communication...
And connect it to real-world events
and what actually happens in the field.
When I arrived at that point, everything started
to fall into place
and then you can reconstruct the entire system,
their entire command and control system
and everything they do.
Everything is human behavior.
Human behavior is very patterned.
How do people operate? How do they interact?
And how it manifests or appears
in this abstract communication series
Are you looking?
This problem reaches the point where you can
understand the pattern
and interpret it correctly.
When you sit there and see a problem like that
and you see-- You can see patterns and pauses,
it's fun when you do it.
That's right.
Which is basically what we call metadata analysis now.
Looks like nobody did that.
So finally the NSA asked me to be reassigned
to NSA headquarters.
I got a letter from what we called "God"
in February of the year & apos; 67.
[Loomis] Metadata is actually just data
about data.
And as a traffic analyst,
You don't care about what's in the conversation.
You care who speaks with whom,
how often they talk, when they speak,
what are their speech patterns,
who they are talking to,
what is subordinated,
organizational command and control structure?
[Binney] In May & apos; 68,
I was moved
to the current reporting store.
Early in the summer, the Russians began practicing
or exercise along the border of Czechoslovakia.
I began to see communication
they use to move.
And that's where I started choosing
some very small unique things
it's different from a normal training program.
So I started to catch it.
And I said, "it's clear that they will invade."
Just two days later they actually invaded.
That was the first incident I had
direct personal experience with real-world activities which let me see what's different between that
and training.
That gives me an idea of what is a real warning indicator
upcoming action.
Real warning indicators, there are only five.
Five, that's all. Only five warning indicators.
I mean, they might have a hundred warning indicators
in the list,
but none of them means anything.
Five real ones are not even in the list.
Okay, so I have five of me
and the rest doesn't mean to me.
So I only pay attention to those five people.
And that's only case by case from time to time, for decades,
You can see every time they will do something.
One or more of these,
one or two of these will at least appear.
When the Yom Kippur War came in & apos; 73,
once again, the warning indicator starts to appear.
And once again at os 79 with Afghanistan.
It was about a week before the invasion.
It's very close to the Christmas holidays.
So at that time, I said, "well, they will approach
until midnight on Christmas Eve
because that's when everyone will fall asleep
in the free world."
And that's what they do.
I go one hour.
I don't understand why many people can't see
what can I see.
I do not see that understanding
as something more than just a greater understanding
people and how they operate.
[Drake] I sit at the terrorism table
at the Pentagon in 1993 I was at the table when they tried to drop
The World Trade Center rose for the first time with a truck bomb.
That's when I first learned about Osama bin Laden.
I remember clearly publishing a report
where we say this is a serious problem.
This is not a one-time event.
There is a bigger movement here,
and they plan to do more.
Al-Qaeda, base,
and Osama bin Laden as their leaders
not only issued a statement,
they really call for action.
Senior military officer, J2,
report to the joint chief of staff,
come to our warning center
at the National Military Joint Intelligence Center,
and he said, "Yes, I'm reading your report.
Who cares about some rombong spouting fatwas
in the desert under a fig tree?
Who cares?
Not a threat. "
[Roark] National Security Agency
has traditionally been
one of the most productive US intelligence agencies.
We have relied heavily on it since World War II
at least.
When I get a National Security Agency account,
I have heard that they are in very good condition.
I go for intensive briefing rounds,
and after about three months,
I am shocked by the poor condition of the institution.
We are very unprepared for the digital age.
But the National Security Agency's management continues to think
that they are the best in the world
and have the best technology
because this is always their reputation
and they are sure
that there is no fundamental problem.
I am sure that there is a fundamental problem,
both technical and cultural,
and I became very worried very quickly.
[Loomis] Look, they sink
in garbage.
The processes that exist before ThinThread appear
are illegal garbage collectors,
and they throw away all things
into a very large storage system
and analysts stutter trying to find out,
good, you know, "what's important to me?"
[Binney] ThinThread is the way we try
to overcome the digital era.
That is a question to be able to manage the volume of data.
The terrorists use all cellphones,
all land line phones, all internet connections
to communicate.
So it's a new Cold War, if you want,
is a digital world explosion around the world.
NSA takes a different perspective that says,
"let's collect everything
and then we will ask our analyst to find out later."
The problem is, after they collect everything,
Your analyst can't find out.
Too much. They can't pass it
every day.
They will make their database interesting and they have hundreds of
thousands of returns.
You can't pass it.
You bury your analyst with meaningless data.
That's when I started to see what we had to do
to solve data volume problems
and how we can isolate important things
for our analysts to see.
And the key is metadata.
Only uses metadata in terms of relationships
throughout the network.
So you don't need to look internally at the content.
You pay more attention to relationships
of people who communicate
or organizations that communicate in the world.
So that's how you can look into a large amount of data
fast enough,
effective, and interesting data
is relevant
to the target you want to analyze.
My biggest fear in all my work at NSA
is fear of human inaccuracy and human failure
in terms of interpreting things correctly
or in terms of recognizing something.
I feel that the process must be fully automatic
as much as possible so that information is entered
untouched by human hands.
Oops.
Many people call me things like "Great Satan,"
or, you know, "the evil one," I think,
and many other names, you know.
So I have a group of people who don't want to talk to me
or get involved with me
because they feel that if they do, they will lose their jobs.
I was sitting at my desk in pencil and paper trying to build the Soviet military structure
command and control system, of all strengths.
To do this, I need a little help
from experts in cryptologists.
So I came to them to get the part they had
in ownership.
And they come back with a very small answer,
and I say, "if you don't want to solve this problem,
just give a little and I will do it. "
I can't wait for them.
For nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles to be fired,
it takes no more than 30 minutes
to go from one continent to another.
That means you want to reply or not
before a weapon starts landing,
You have 30 minutes to make that decision. For a long time
in my career at NSA,
I tried to work-- this might be running
sequence 13 years,
I tried to work with computer people
because I want them to do certain programs
that will help me in what I try to do.
Every time I ask them to do something for me,
they will say, "okay, please send us a memo
say you have this requirement."
So I will send a memo to them after the memo.
That gives them requirements.
That requirement gives them justification
go to congress or other people internally at NSA
and ask for money.
So it helps them build their empire, you know?
But in the meantime, they will never solve my problem.
They will only take money and keep asking me
other requirements.
At one time in 1983,
The magic of this PC appears on my desk.
I have a friend who is possible
the best C language programmer at NSA.
His name is Bill, too, and I say, "Bill,
What do you think we can do with this PC?
If I can get a shared algorithm,
do you think you can program it in this
two disk drives, 64k ram pc?
He said, "Yes, I think I can do that."
I say, "extraordinary." So we will type questions from the problem unresolved
from the database...
and rising will appear the answer. my small pc drive
and get the answer right away.
So I have to tell the computer people,
and I say, "You know, I have this little program
below here.
You might want to see this. "
And I have this template from the database,
and I will go through," see, it doesn't finish this here.
Watch this here. "
And I will put it in my little PC,
and the answer will come.
There is one more, and I will type it there,
and up will appear the answer.
They start sweating , I can see.
And I say, "don't you think it's neat?"
He said, "Yes, don't you think it should be
are on the mainframe? "
I say," sure. I think it's supposed to be
on mainframe.
Why don't you send me a memo and I will give it to you? "
I think it's great.
In this process, of course, I study, very simply,
if you want something done, you just have to do it.
You never ask permission, just ask forgiveness,
if you have to.
In the end, sometimes you don't need to do it.
After you solve the problem, it's no longer a problem.
My philosophy is very simple.
If someone says something is impossible,
that's something you have to do.
It's like open thinking. You do not limit your thinking.
You let it float wherever it wants.
So it gives you ideas about how you can be creative
in any environment.
And that's what I'm looking for,
Be creative wherever I go.
And that's what is called SARC, Sigint Automation Research Center,
all about.
[Drake] The SARC is this
Organization skunk work,
about a dozen people.
Bill Binney is one of the founders.
Ed Loomis is an integrator.
Kirk Weibe at that time was like a business manager and analyst.
And they also have other people's supporters.
And they have several contractors.
SARC prides itself on having a very small team
it's very creative and flexible.
They don't want a lot of bureaucracy.
They have a very low profile when I ask
briefing from them,
management doesn't even know about them.
They must fight to find out who they are.
They hide a bit until their system is perfect.
[Drake] That's amazing
organization.
And Bill, he is the algorithmic brain.
He is a crypto-mathematician behind the algorithm
from what is known as ThinThread.
People say to me, "You must be afraid of Bill."
And the reason you have to be afraid of Bill
is he like this super crypto-mathematician.
And if something goes wrong, he will destroy you.
So I finally called him, we made an agreement to meet,
and I finally appeared in his office one morning.
I spent several hours with him,
and that's immediately clear
in the first 15 minutes we will do it
really, very good.
Because of the whole first part of our conversation
are all mathematically based.
The thing Bill likes best is mathematics.
As soon as someone proposes something mathematical,
His eyes are really lit and he's happy
and he will start talking about it, you know?
He only loves mathematics.
And amazingly he found his profession,
You know, what he really has to do.
[Binney] The beauty of mathematics
is an effort
for common sense structure
and consistency in the universe.
That's all.
There is no chaos.
Nothing is unlimited.
Everything is structured.
And it's only a matter of finding that structure.
I basically imagine the
graph as a very large globe, look?
With a total of about 7 billion nodes in it, or dots.
And has all the connections of all these individuals
with all the other connections they have anywhere in the world.
Think of yourself as drifting into the world.
So you will enter the world
and you can go anywhere anywhere in the world
and look at a certain point to see the relationship
they have all the points in the world.
When you go to the world, you choose a point,
and you can pull it out of the relationship graph,
and with that will come all nodes
that he has a relationship with.
When you pull the node out and the community, if you want,
the social network it has,
You pull all backup data
which creates the relationship to start
so you can now set the relationship time
and see interactions over a certain period of time
whatever you want to find.
So that's how I imagine graphics.
[Loomis] My interest is
in making Bill Binney happy.
Bill Binney is a traffic analyst.
So my focus is actually creating metadata for him
that he can do analytic traffic.
You can extract a lot about someone's life
just by looking at metadata.
And today, when you take all metadata
that appears throughout the world
by GPS, by your mobile,
by your transponder
for your E-Zpass on the highway,
with your credit card when you enter it in the ATM machine
or when you put it in the cash register,
check-out line,
all the data is put together all
and everything goes back to you, individual.
It doesn't matter what you say in an email or what website you visit or what you download.
What matters is your digital behavior pattern
and what fingerprints he left
of what you have done.
I started building my part of what I was considering
ThinThread program,
which is the backend for data analysis
after being acquired.
Ed is doing a front end, doing sessionizer
collect data together
and assemble it for me to see.
Ed sessionizer is our starting point
to access and scan the internet for important information.
I am sure that the internet is a new way
communication
for terrorists and criminals.
And we knew at that time that some of them
has moved in that direction.
[Drake] Internet explodes.
NSA is actually catching up.
They are so far behind time.
NSA management seriously considers, not kidding,
do they really give people
e-mail technology.
And the reason is we don't know what they are doing
to send each other.
And there are no secrets that are worth knowing on the internet.
Everything is open. It's no secret.
There is no effort. We want real secrets.
We don't-- internet?
You can't have a secret internet.
Around 1996, I believe that,
we found Inmarsat Osama bin Laden's phone number,
and we use it to follow its movements
and intentions from & apos; 96 to & apos; 98.
Until someone compromises the facts
that we have a specific telephone number,
and he gave the number.
And after that, we lost it as a source
intelligence.
[Koppel] More than 80 people died,
more than 1,700 people are injured
in two bomb blasts today, which exploded for only a few minutes
and 450 miles apart.
The explosion will explode at the US embassy
in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya,
clearly a part of someone's war
against the United States, although it's still unclear
at this hour who is our enemy.
[man] There is smoke
and debris everywhere.
We immediately leave the office because we don't know
What has happened.
And there are people who are naked there,
and everyone we visit is covered in blood.
[newscaster] We join now
from the White House
by US national security adviser, Sandy Burger.
Is this a US intelligence failure?
[Burger] Well, the investigation
is happening.
I don't believe that is the problem, and I think that will happen
it's not appropriate for me to comment on
what we know, what we don't know.
[Binney] In August 1998,
we managed to set up our sessionizer
at the optical fiber level.
Ed gives a copy of the sessionizer
to our friends in Bad Aibling,
one of our echelon sites to collect data
in southern Germany.
We just want to say, "here, why don't you try this
and see what you think and give us feedback."
And he said, "Wow, this sessionizer really looks
great and works great."
He said, you know, "I thought I would put it on the whole site."
They put it on their system Friday night.
And when they do that,
starts to produce so much information
and return it to NSA
that on Saturday morning it almost fell
all storage systems inside the NSA.
Too much data entered. They can't handle it.
[Loomis] We were told that it brought
storage system to his knee.
And we turn it off.
So one programmer must come during the weekend
and turn off sessionizer.
[Binney] This particular test
clearly shows
that there is more data there
is far more valuable as a source of information
from anyone who is aware at the NSA.
This is a kind of wake up call
which I think makes it clear to them
that they need to open their minds
to a much larger scale than they think.
[beeping]
[Wiebe] I've heard about Bill Binney,
but haven't really met him.
I call him. I said, "Bill,
Can I go down and see you
and what your organization is doing?"
He said, "sure. Come down."
So I went down, I joined Bill Binney
at the Sigint Automation Research Center.
And I looked around, and when I met these people
and talk to them
and interview them, find out who did what,
and start seeing results from their efforts,
I became really excited.
In the face of the challenges of big data,
digital communication, and internet,
I see the answer right in front of me.
This small research organization
has the key to the future of the NSA.
My immediate attention is
Do anyone else know that?
Do they even recognize--
is there anyone in any position of influence or power
even recognize what they have?
[Roark] I am aware of technology
that goes to ThinThread from 1997.
I got a formal explanation from Bill and Ed and their team,
and I think it's very impressive compared to what I heard at the NSA.
I think it looks very promising.
I started giving them money.
And I will make Congress agree
to ensure that they are funded to be developed
their system...
Because the agency admits they must update
to the digital era from the analog era.
They haven't started yet.
And even under analog systems,
there is a flood of incoming data.
And after you get digital data,
You get this high capacity pipeline,
it will be much worse.
So it will be important that there are several ways
to choose a target from this.
Some ways are far better than the keyword system
the NSA used at that time.
[Binney] Shortly after that
Bad Aibling test,
we have the entire system running,
then from there, we take more data
a large number of cellphones and a large number of computers.
We started to consolidate it into my big chart,
which we call the big ass graph.
We begin to attract large amounts of data
and the system works fine,
we can see there is no limit to that...
Building relationships between billions of people.
I mean, we're talking trillions of transactions.
It is quite clear that we are building
the most powerful analytical tool that has been developed
in history
to monitor, basically, the whole world
in the near future.
This automatically monitors each member of the population.
You attack everyone's privacy.
That doesn't match democracy.
That is not appropriate.
It's like a station on super steroids
or KGB on super steroids, huh?
These are things they can't even dream of.
That's where I, specifically, say we have to do something
to protect individuals here,
especially those who are innocent
doing nothing wrong.
There is no reason to have this data about them.
[Roark] General Hayden appears
as the new director of the NSA.
At that time, congressional intelligence staff
have become very disappointed
with NSA's ability to manage modernization.
He rather comes in the sense of
that he is willing to make changes,
although not necessarily in the area
that congress is focused on,
and he is a very fast speaker.
When he will direct the members, he will speak very quickly.
He will use all types of parables and analogies
and everything that makes you scratch your head
while he was hijacked forward,
and he will survive with so much.
I think the members,
this is a topic that is quite difficult to understand
start with,
he leaves the members in dust.
[Binney] When Michael Hayden entered
as NSA director,
one of the first things he says is
NSA becomes deaf and blind.
So he created the NSA transformation office, NTO.
A friend of mine becomes the head of NTO,
and he realized what we did with ThinThread,
and he thinks it's great.
So he sent his deputy down, and he said,
"What can you do with $ 1.2 billion?"
Now, offered suddenly 1.2 billion
is flabbergasting, huh?
It's a bit difficult to handle.
We have operated for only a few million dollars.
So we asked them to give us a little time
to try to find out what we can do
do with it.
So when he comes back in,
we say we can improve the whole world--
everything we have in the world,
and everything back here in the United States,
but in the process, we can only spend
maybe a little over $ 300 million to do it.
So he said, "it's really great."
A few days later, he went back down.
He said, "You are doing a great job
with 1.2 billion offers.
Now what can you do with 1.4 billion?" Shortly after that my friend at NTO
has been replaced.
He is basically fired.
And Hayden proposed a program called Trailblazer.
And that is a multi-billion dollar program which will basically be outsourced
and run by contractors and developed by contractors.
[Roark] When the NSA starts
Pioneer,
I asked if they would send a design paper
and let me read it.
After I read it, I called NSA
and I asked if I could talk to the Trailblazer management.
And I said, "I want to make sure I understand this paper."
I say, "from what I understand,
modernizing digitally, what you want to do
starts with your analog system
and develops it into a digital system
by issuing one part in time
and increase and add more parts. "
And they say, "yes, that is exactly."
And I said, "it won't work.
This is not a starter. It will never work."
Why do we start from outdated analog technology
and try to develop it into digital technology?
That's just-- that doesn't make sense.
You have to use new modern digital technology
from the beginning.
One reason I support ThinThread
is I think it's far more innovative
and far more simple and elegant in design
of what they think,
therefore may cause fewer problems.
[Binney] From our testing
with our big ass graph,
very clear to us that we must protect
individual privacy rights.
So we designed ways to build protection
and allows to encrypt all of its attributes
so you don't know who they are
and you can't analyze what they do
because you can't identify them.
And in cases where they are not even in the zone of suspicion,
which we will define in the graph,
their data won't even be taken,
so no one has the opportunity to abuse
their privacy.
This is also the incoming metadata.
The FISA filtering tool we have
filter all American citizens
or parties in America
unless it's a specific target.
But even then, you have to get a warrant
to reveal identity.
[Binney] In 2000, we had everything connected
and everything together and walk from one end
to others
in 24 hours a day
in three different locations that focus on Asia.
The only site agreed upon
to work with us
are sites known as research sites.
You know, I never called it a test site, but...
I mean, they are sites that already exist, I mean.
And they produce intelligence from it
for a long time.
[Roark] We went to NSA
and ask for a brief explanation.
The SARC team came and I was very surprised,
all Trailblazer teams come to the briefing without being invited.
Bill and Ed start the briefing,
and the surprising thing is that everything goes on
from the point of collection to reporting,
and includes automatic reporting.
So I turned to Trailblazer people,
"Will you enter this into the Trailblazer?
Doesn't this help you?"
And they are pretty much rambling and stiff-faced.
And apparently SARC got a lot of problems
for this
after me and other congressional staff left.
General Hayden calls the entire SARC team,
fence them in his office, dress them up,
scold them without letting them have the opportunity to speak.
And then issue dir-gram
notify the entire NSA
that after a company decision is made,
that they don't damage it with Congress.
In other words, they have to cover it
adverse information.
That, for me, the absolute clarion call
to make Congress in darkness.
I think it's very insolent.
[Binney] General Hayden basically said
ThinThread there is no contribution to the Trailblazer program.
Trailblazer is the program, and we won't have it
other programs.
ThinThread, in my view, after we have everything together,
solve all problems of volume, speed, and variation.
We have solved all the problems
that they claim is a problem.
But they reject it as a risk mitigation process.
I mean, that's the kind of experience I have
with generals back in 1968 when right before
for Tet Attack we predicted
which touched on the previous two months.
Some people come to me and show some reports
on activities in Vietnam,
and they say that they are preparing a major attack
who will go from the delta to northern Vietnam.
That was all reported to all the main commanders in the field
as well as the pentagon and everyone,
but no one in the position of authority pays attention to it.
General Westmoreland once again said to people
in the United States
that we won.
We watch the situation carefully.
And I'm sure that there are further initiatives
can be blunted.
[Binney] I basically see that as
a philosophy of arrogance of power.
They feel they have so much power that they are invincible.
I have friends who are stationed in Vietnam.
One colonel I know has a battalion
placed on the road from Saigon to Cambodia,
which is the main point of attack.
He, of course, has a report too.
So he has 50% of his men in the trench all the time,
24 hours a day...
Until the attack.
He is ready, and he loses one person
on the first day,
and he stopped it cold.
The problem is all the forces on both sides
have fallen back because they can't resist
their position on the phone
because they are not ready yet.
They don't listen to intelligence.
So he finally had to retreat.
The point is if they are ready,
the offensive will get a place at all,
but they don't pay attention.
This is a trick and dangerous actions by enemies.
[Binney] We think they're all idiots.
I think every general in the country must be fired
after the attack.
All of them.
They should be derived from services.
I mean, we got rid of the generals and all that during World War II for very similar types of omission,
so I don't understand why we don't get rid of it.
And in the case of Americans, I think there's a little
more than 2,000 lives are lost
in the attack.
It doesn't count how many are injured.
That's why I saw it when they treated us
only meat on the line.
You know, throw more meat on the line.
We started our special coverage tonight
with the latest about terror attacks
against US-guided Cole missile destroyers.
The Navy says it has found the bodies of seven sailors and is looking for a ruined interior
ship for ten more people.
About 35 other sailors were injured.
[newscaster] In the bleak weather
adjust the opportunity,
the first body of a sailor killed the Cole ship
arrived in Germany this afternoon.
The explosion that claimed their lives
estimated to have happened
by several hundred pounds of explosives
in new and deadly terrorist tactics.
[newscaster] Immediately after the attack
there is nothing left from the small local port craft
which the navy said was carrying explosives.
Despite instability in the nearest area,
Aden strategic port has been used as a fuel stop place
for two years
and Cole are in a high alert state.
But there seems to be no defense
against suicide bombers in small boats.
[Binney] We decided to continue
develop ThinThread
to try to make sure we have something that will
functions functionally
at the end of 2000
so we can overcome the problem of terrorism
in the real world, not in the world of desires
from Trailblazer, for example.
That's when I went to our terrorism analysis center
and say, "okay, what site do you have that will--
that produces information that means to you
to analyze terrorism targets around the world?"
So they gave me a list of 18 sites,
so I took it as a target set to fight terrorism.
And then I came in November 2000
and make a proposal that we did ThinThread
to 18 sites began in January 2001.
But it was rejected again.
So I don't know exactly who refused it.
I assume it is the head of SID, Maureen Baginski.
He is the third person in the ranking in the agency.
There is a director, deputy director, then he.
[Loomis] General Hayden
hire Bill Black
to come and take over the position of deputy director.
After Bill Black is taken from SAIC,
where he became vice president,
next spring, he brings
Other senior vice presidents of SAIC,
and that person is Sam Visner.
And who gets a contract to develop a Trailblazer?
SAIC.
What's wrong with this photo?
[Binney] SAIC is a private company.
This is made basically from NSA individuals who retire.
People from the NSA retire and they will enter the company
like SAIC,
and then they will use their contacts again at the NSA
to get the contract back to SAIC.
So when Sam Visner came to take over
NSA transformation office,
the first thing he did was call me to his office.
So I went to his office to talk to him,
and when I go in there, senior developer
for the Trailblazer program there.
And the first thing Sam told me,
he said, "I don't want you to briefing ThinThread
to anyone else."
And the reason he said that, of course,
because we have made an appointment
to explain Charlie Allen.
He is a senior collection officer
for the intelligence community,
so he has a lot of influence.
So I asked him if he wanted me to cancel the appointment,
and he said, "no, no, don't do that.
You go ahead and finish the briefing."
I say, "okay, I'll do it."
When Charlie Allen goes in there,
the first thing he sat down and said to us,
before we even start showing anything about ThinThread,
he said, "I heard you have a cheap Trailblazer here,
and I'm here to see it."
Well, I mean, I was invited.
Maureen Baginski appears
Because Maureen knows Charlie Allen.
They are friends for a long time--
they have known each other for several years, I think.
And he was there, and he said--
at that time, he said, "yes, Charlie,
but we still need money."
That is the end of our briefing on ThinThread.
[Loomis] On August 20, 2001,
Maureen baginski called me and asked to talk to me
and Bill Binney
4:30 that afternoon.
And he said to meet him in his office,
So Bill and I go to his office.
And in this meeting with him he advised us
that he ends ThinThread.
And he said that the decision was made because
he must decide whether or not
he wants to make six people unhappy
or nearly 500 unhappy.
So he chose to make the six people unhappy.
So the decision is what I basically call
happiness management.
[newscaster] They let us stay awake.
I'm not sure why.
Newark allows us to stay awake.
We-- only news helicopters are allowed to ride
from all over the country.
We, like, five people in the air, that's all.
Oh God, what happened?
It's like the side of the building exploding, Chad,
on the other side.
The side we can't see.
Look at that.
Oh my God!
The entire tower collapses.
The whole building is gone. Entire building.
Oh!
Daniela, did you hear me? The entire building collapsed.
It's gone.
The second tower is missing.
Oh, those poor people. Oh, my God.
On 9/11, I had taken my father-in-law
to an ophthalmologist for examination,
so I sit in the waiting room
watching television
when he was examined.
And that's when I saw the first plane
tap the tower in New York.
And soon it's said to me
that we as agents failed to warn
from this terrorist attack.
When my father-in-law finishes the examination,
I took it home and then tried to return to NSA
to see what I can do
to help get information
about who does this and all.
And they won't let me back just because
Director Hayden has sent everyone home
that is not needed for the job,
and the guards keep everyone out,
so we can't go back that day.
So the day after 9/11,
I come dressed as I will sweep the floor,
So the guards let me enter
Otherwise they will get me out too,
because of that day,
General Hayden has ordered everyone out
from the building too.
So when I go in there, I go to SARC
And while there trying to see the material
on my computer,
contracting-- I'm
president of the contract group
which I worked on ThinThread
come to me and say that he just
in a contractor meeting with Sam Visner.
And at that meeting, Sam Visner told him that...
he said to him, "don't embarrass big companies.
you do your part, you will get your share.
There is a lot for everyone."
And he also said that Sam had said that,
"We can milk this cow for 15 years."
We started going to the world of work
and I will accompany Maureen Baginski.
Workforce is very extraordinary hard.
People will ask him, "what will you do?"
I still remember him saying,
"9/11 is a gift for the NSA.
We will get all the money we need and then some."
Direct quote.
"9/11 is a gift for the NSA."
All he saw was a dollar that came from Congress,
and we will spend it freely.
[Binney] That's not
we should be.
It's not about making money,
it's about protecting the country
and free world. That isn't-- You know,
not how big the kingdom we can build
or how much money can we make, huh?
That's just sickening.
In late September or early October,
we at SARC watched all this
equipment starts to arrive
and piled up in the hallway and outside SARC
and inside SARC on the path
between partitions for a table.
We know something happened because of all this equipment
enter.
And then in early October,
it starts to disappear.
That means they are assembling hardware
somewhere in the corridor
a little down from our place.
And then in mid-October, the second week in October,
some people who used to do that--
I am under contract to do software for us at SARC,
come to me and say that,
"Do you know what they are doing there?
They take data on every US citizen in this country."
To do espionage on US citizens,
they must use the only software that is managed
large-scale operations,
which is the software that I put together,
which is the backend of ThinThread,
the part that does the graph
and information management
index to graph.
And one of the first things they do
to make the process work efficiently, of course,
According to them,
is deleting all encryption algorithms
we put it in...
To protect privacy and identity rights
US citizens or other citizens
in that database.
Well, I mean, after I was told
that they draw all this data to US citizens
and basically graph relationships
every US citizen who uses the telephone
or whatever electronics,
well I - it's clear to me that I have to leave the agency.
I can't live there, so I have to get out
as fast as I can.
Bill, Ed, and Kirk become very disgusted with all the resistance they get,
and with some personal attacks against them,
I think too,
that they decide to take the offer to retire
at the end of October,
and they told me that they planned to do that.
Our last breath at the NSA was October 31, 2001.
Halloween Day. Right type.
[Binney] After 9/11,
and after we leave,
Tom takes over ThinThread.
And he said, "well, let's take the software
on ThinThread
and run it on the database
which we have accumulated in the NSA
to find out if there is information about the 9/11 attacks
that we should know, but not.
[Drake] We let it run... somewhere
around 24 to 36 hours. and they just destroy.
We find critical intelligence,
Al-Qaeda and intelligence associations
movements that the NSA has never found.
They don't even know they have it in their database.
= = But also the specific details
numbers and movements
and time and location--
travel.
And you see the pattern of spread
that happens after that happens.
You also see that there is a part of the plot
where they are not successful.
There are several aircraft that are targeted.
And for a number of reasons,
the planes were not really hijacked.
You can imagine the horror of making it happen
what hasn't been found
and confirm what is known
sit in this database.
What if this was discovered before 9/11?
We have information in the database.
NSA response?
Close the program completely.
[Roark] 9/11 will be avoided.
We will catch people
who communicates from San Diego
with people abroad, with terrorists known abroad.
There's no way we won't catch it.
[Binney] After Ed and Kirk
and I left the NSA,
we formed a small company, a consulting company
we are called Entity Mapping, LLC.
We decided to try to present the ThinThread
concept to other agents and governments
and bring it to the US government
through another door.
[Binney] We were asked by
Senate Intelligence Committee staff
to go to the National Reconnaissance Office.
They manage all satellites and reconnaissance
type of mission.
We are working there on a program,
but NSA knows about that.
They get all programs stopped.
Then we go to customs and border protection.
They got us fired from that one.
Bill and Kirk are very angry at all times
we go to get a contract with a promising customer,
at the last minute, it will be turned off.
It happened with INSCOM, it happened with the pentagon,
that happens with NRO, it happens with the CIA.
We stop at each of them,
even though it works.
- OK, I think we understand. - Yes
[Wiebe] Includes one
where we are given a data set
and asked to analyze it
even though the NSA has analyzed it.
We found very valuable material in that data
where NSA doesn't.
We write reports, send them to the chain.
A senior executive at the agency said,
"Oh my God, these people will embarrass Michael Hayden
and the people in the castle.
We have to stop this program."
And that stops immediately. We were told to stop working.
Don't do anything else.
And they started to dismantle the computer
that we do
and the data we found
and all intelligence
removed from disk.
[Binney] The NSA is trying to defend it
ThinThread principles
is being applied anywhere in the US government
so there are no other agents in the US government
can use it too.
So in essence, they want to maintain the US population
and vulnerable free world population,
that's what they do.
And that's why we filed an IG DoD complaint in September 2002 against NSA
for corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse.
[Loomis] Kirk arranges it
very strong fraud complaints
and we say, "let's do it."
And Diane is also a party in this matter.
He agreed to join.
So there's Kirk, Bill, Diane, and myself,
and then Kirk really floats this by Tom Drake.
I am not aware that he,
but he shared with Tom Drake.
And Tom, because he still works at the NSA,
says that he will support us from within.
[Drake] I have access
for important information
which is clear NSA is hiding.
Because of all these investigations
in progress,
NSA says, "let's find out where the framework is,
catch everything, and then bury the report
as deep as possible."
This is actually something that Bill Black,
deputy director, do it.
And the order comes out,
"No one will see the report.
We can't show anyone
what ThinThread found that we haven't found.
We can't show ThinThread confirmed
what is clearly a failure . "
So I was officially contacted
and settings made for me to meet
with researchers.
And the DoD IG office is investigating that.
with around 12 researchers,
and take them about two and a half years to do it.
They finally publish their report
at, I think that, January 2005.
And at that time, about 98% of them were edited because it is very damaging to the NSA.
[Loomis] Many of the editors
is in paragraph
marked is not classified.
So it's clear to me
that dirty laundry is destroyed.
[Binney] This is our judicial department
cover up for those crimes.
[Wiebe] In 2005,
Trailblazer is declared a total failure,
spend billions of dollars.
Many millionaires were made during that time,
but not much intelligence is done.
That was the biggest failure in NSA history.
People don't realize it.
However, Hayden general,
who led the biggest failure in NSA history,
promoted to a higher authority position,
make a deputy director of National Intelligence,
and then promoted again
and become director of Central Intelligence.
Very strange when humanity promotes failure.
Something is wrong.
On July 26, 2007,
The FBI decided to attack four people.
That is Kirk Weibe, Ed Loomis,
Diane Roark, and myself.
So they fabricate evidence
to get a warrant signed by the judge
to enter and attack our home and take our material.
In particular, they are all
material related to ThinThread.
My child opens the door and lets them in,
and they come with their weapons pulled
and push it out of the way at gunpoint,
and come to the bedroom where my wife is dressed
and direct the gun towards him, and then enter the bathroom
where I take a shower and point a gun at me.
I didn't hear them at first, apparently.
When I hear it,
sounds like they will break the door.
They shake it wildly and slam it forward and back.
When the attack occurs here,
it is very surprising to my inner core.
I don't believe that happened.
[Roark] I went to call
My first lawyer.
He told me to request a statement
that justifies the attack.
I ask them, they say it's secret
and I can't see it.
As soon as I hang up, I realize they have gone
to office
and retrieve all the most relevant information,
all the things about the NSA on the shelf,
which, I think, is the first indication
that they have entered the house before.
When all the equipment is taken from my house,
my computer, my data, my newspaper,
My memorandum that I shared with my friends,
I just can't believe
that I am considered an enemy
by my own country.
I think - I keep thinking if this happens to us,
and we are educated people,
sophisticated in governmental ways,
who can get help,
what happens to men on the street?
What happened to that 18-year-old child?
[Binney] When I find it all
the things we do
as a result of 9/11,
and I heard Vice President Cheney's statement about,
"We have to go to the dark side,"
I have seen it as total destruction
our society,
and we lose all moral positions in the world
as a result of going to the dark side.
That is only sa